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1 month ago | 
wilsoncenter.org | William Drozdiak |Michael Kugelman |David Ottaway |Victor Andrusiv
For years, European governments have promised to get serious about taking responsibility for their own defense. But only now, less than two months into a second Trump administration, has the realization begun to sink in that America may no longer be ready and willing to come to Europe’s rescue.
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Dec 3, 2024 | 
wilsoncenter.org | David Ottaway
President-Elect Donald J. Trump and Saudi Arabia’s de facto ruler, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS), would seem set to expand substantially the close personal relationship they developed during Trump’s first term in office. The highlights included Trump making his first trip abroad to the Saudi kingdom and almost convincing the Saudi leader to follow two other neighboring Arab monarchs in opening diplomatic relations with Israel. Since then, their business dealings have only expanded.
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Oct 18, 2024 | 
wilsoncenter.org | David Ottaway
On March 8, 1985, a huge bomb went off in the Shia sector of Beirut, killing 80 Lebanese civilians and wounding over 250 others. The target had been Sheikh Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah, whom Lebanese and American intelligence officials had fingered as the mastermind of the terrorist operation blowing up the US Marine barracks outside the Beirut International Airport in October 1983 and resulting in 241 American deaths. Miraculously, Fadlallah escaped with no injury.
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Oct 16, 2024 | 
wilsoncenter.org | David Ottaway
President Trump enthusiastically promised Saudi Arabia wholehearted support for its campaign to roll back Iranian influence in the Arab world during his visit to Riyadh May 20-21, offering a $110 billion arms sale package to prove it. And it will shortly begin re-supplying the Royal Saudi Air Force with $500 million worth of smart bombs and other munitions in preparation for what is shaping up to be a make-or-break battle in the stalemated Yemeni civil war.
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Jul 10, 2024 | 
wilsoncenter.org | David Ottaway
The time has come for the Biden administration to rethink its policy toward Hamas. Even the Israeli military has come to the conclusion that it cannot be eliminated and will remain a major political force after a ceasefire is concluded in the Gaza war. Such a rethink will not be easy. Both the United States and Israel are committed to the total destruction of Hamas after its October 7 incursion into the Jewish state that left 1,200 Israelis dead and 250 others seized as hostages.
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Jun 7, 2024 | 
wilsoncenter.org | David Ottaway
The Israel-Hamas War has given birth to a Black Swan in Yemen, where the rebel Houthi government has succeeded against all expectations in largely paralyzing global commercial traffic in the Red Sea. Efforts by US, British, and European Union warships sent to stop Houthi drones and missile attacks on commercial shipping through the strategic international waterway have so far failed and have little prospect for success short of a major escalation.
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Mar 9, 2024 | 
wilsoncenter.org | David Ottaway
One year ago, on March 10, Saudi Arabia and Iran agreed to renew diplomatic relations after a seven-year rupture and pledged to open up a new era of cooperation in their stormy rivalry for primacy in the Persian Gulf. They have exchanged ambassadors, re-opened their embassies, and held numerous high-level meetings capped off by President Ebrahim Raisi’s visit to Riyadh in November, the first Iranian of his rank to visit Riyadh in eleven years.
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Jan 19, 2024 | 
wilsoncenter.org | David Ottaway
US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken says all the Arab leaders he met with on his latest whirlwind Middle East tour agree with the United States that a Palestinian state is the sine quo non for any peace plan following a ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas war. It has zero chance of success, however, unless the Biden administration is ready for a showdown with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over the accelerating campaign by Israeli settlers to incorporate the West Bank into Israel proper.
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Dec 16, 2023 | 
wilsoncenter.org | David Ottaway
Once again, the United States finds itself on the cusp of involvement in another of the Middle East’s unending conflicts, this time in Yemen in the name of protecting the free flow of navigation through two vital international waterways. In a show of support for the Palestinian side in the ongoing Israeli-Hamas War, the Iranian-backed Houthi government in Yemen has announced its intention to block all ships passing through the Red Sea via the Bab el-Mandeb Strait on their way to Israel.
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Nov 28, 2023 | 
wilsoncenter.org | David Ottaway
Seldom has the Middle East produced such an unforeseen event as we witnessed on October 7 when Hamas launched its bloody incursion into southern Israel. It had reportedly picked the date quite deliberately in memory of another similar happening fifty years ago — Egypt’s initially successful offensive against occupying Israeli troops in the Sinai Desert that marked the start of the last general Arab-Israeli clash, the Yom Kippur War.
